The Brexit summit of EU leaders in Salzburg on 19-20 September ended up in a drama. That is not justified but it suggests the EU and the UK lack a good understanding of each other and that raises the odds of a ‘Hard Brexit’ by accident.

Leaving the EU has direct and structural economic costs for the UK, irrespective of how the country leaves the EU. The magnitude of the impact depends on the future trade relationship they will negotiate with the EU, and a transition period could soften the blow. From that perspective it is not reassuring that with six months left before ‘Brexit day’ the UK is still divided over the Brexit objectives.

On 27 September the Italian government presented its budget target for 2019. The worsened outlook has shocked markets and kept them busy since. The government will expectedly temper part of its plans if necessary to calm markets. That said, the risk that it will do too little too late cannot be neglected.

The Indian rupee is the worst performing currency in Asia, losing 12% this year. We use two approaches (an EM Vulnerability Heatmap and an integrated model) to delve deeper into the fundamentals of the INR and assess whether the current weak levels are justified.

We present a ‘new and improved’ version of Rabo’s Emerging Market Vulnerability Heatmap which is constructed from a more comprehensive list of inputs. The heatmap highlights ARS, TRY and ZAR as the most vulnerable emerging market currencies.

The Indian rupee (INR) has been the worst performing currency in Asia, losing more than 12%. Given the outcome of our EM Vulnerability Heatmap, models and expected additional policy interventions, we expect strengthening of the Indian rupee in the short term.

On 24 September the United States have installed tariffs on another 200 billion USD imports from China. China responded with tariffs on 60 billion USD of imports from the US. We expect the negative economic effects to be more pronounced for China than for the US.